Keep Your Phone Working And Your Connection Warm In The Cold Outdoors: Tips From Verizon Wireless

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — With wintry weather making an early and frigid debut across the nation, Verizon Wireless, owner and operator of the nation’s largest and most reliable 3G network, offers the following tips to help consumers use their wireless phones when it’s cold outside:

Keep your phone fully charged. Cold temperatures can run down the phone’s battery charge more quickly. Use a car charger to keep the phone’s charge if you get stranded or stuck in traffic on icy or snowy roads. Think about an extra battery as backup.

Handle your phone with care. The display screen can become brittle when exposed to cold temperatures for long periods of time.

Keep your phone in a warm place; avoid leaving it in an outside pocket or backpack or in the car overnight. When outside in the cold weather, carry your phone in an inside jacket pocket, keeping it close to your body for warmth.

Remember you can’t dial or access the keyboard on a touch screen with gloves, so consider adding finger flip gloves to your winter holiday wish list.

Download free winter apps to your phone from Android Market™ such as:

Winter Weather Outlooks – Allows you access to the National Weather Service Winter Weather Outlooks, so you’ll know what kind of winter weather is headed your way.

How Cold Is It? – A wallpaper that changes color depending on the outside temperature – deep red when it’s hot and icy white when it’s freezing.

ShoppeHUB – This app allows you to make secure purchases on cold weather gear, including winter clothing.

Coffee Recipes – Choose from more than 90 easy coffee recipes that will be sure to keep you warm.

Year-Round Network Commitment Verizon Wireless works year-round to enhance wireless service, increase calling capacity, and add new services nationwide. Since the company was formed, Verizon Wireless has invested more than $60 billion in its nationwide network – $5.7 billion on average every year.

Santa will make a special holiday delivery of backpacks to area children of families affected by domestic violence as part of Verizon Wireless' annual Packs for Pride initiative. For more than a decade, Verizon Wireless Philadelphia region employees have donated backpacks filled with warm winter hats, scarves, gloves, and socks; personal care items; and toys to children staying at local domestic violence shelters and safe houses for the holidays through the program.